


Voices

by Peachpancake



Series: Captain Chan [3]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bang Chan-centric, Gen, M/M, all of the members are only mentioned, also sorry i keep hurting chan in my fics i dont mean to, although felix does appear for a bit at the end, and he went through so much, and yet hes still this wonderful person today, bang chan does so fucking much, bang chan struggles with being bilingual sometimes, being bilingual is hard yo, but its not always for the reasons youd think, but yeah i just thought, chanlix can be platonic or romantic, i havent decided yet, i look up to him so so so much, i love him so much, im gonna stop tagging now, its basically about his thoughts on being bilingual, ok, so uh this one is a bit personal i guess, to all the bilinguals in the world, we should appreciate the fact that, well done bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 05:31:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16570571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peachpancake/pseuds/Peachpancake
Summary: It was hard. Extremely hard. He was completely alone in a new country that seemed so foreign, so alien to him even though this is where he’s supposed to belong. He could barely communicate to anyone, feeling like he’s silenced, like there’s tape over his mouth and no matter how hard he tries, his muffles are only met with confusion. Sometimes he ended up crying from the frustration because no one has understood how difficult it was for him to listen. To talk.It was Chan’s choice to move to a completely new country not knowing the actual language, and even now he sometimes wonders if it was worth it.aka Chan is bilingual and sometimes it hurts him more than it helps.





	Voices

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a lot more personal to me than the rest of them. I moved to a different country when I was twelve, just like Chan, and when I see those videos of him messing up Korean or English, I find it absolutely endearing, but I also know why he makes those mistakes. There is nothing wrong with making those kind of mistakes, of course, but it reminded me of the times where I felt super insecure about my accent or my mistakes when I spoke English and it lead me to write this story.  
> Chan might not be feeling this way, I don't know how he feels about being bilingual at all. I just wanted to write a story to show that maybe, just maybe, he could be feeling insecure about it. Idk, mate, I just felt like writing this?  
> lol im so bad at writing notes  
> anyway, please leave kudos if you liked it, and I always appreciate the comments!!

Chan was only 12 when he was forced to grow up. 

 

It was hard. Extremely hard. He was completely alone in a new country that seemed so foreign, so  _ alien  _ to him even though this is where he’s supposed to belong. He could barely communicate to  _ anyone _ , feeling like he’s silenced, like there’s tape over his mouth and no matter how hard he tries, his muffles are only met with confusion. Sometimes he ended up crying from the frustration because  _ no one  _ has understood how difficult it was for him to listen. To  _ talk. _

 

It was Chan’s choice to move to a completely new country not knowing the actual language, and even now he sometimes wonders if it was worth it. 

 

He remembers one breakdown at his new school in Korea when he was 12. He burst out crying in front of the whole class and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it. It wasn’t even about anything important - it was his history homework that he left in his locker, and he just wanted to let the teacher know that he, in fact, did do it next to all the training he had to do at JYP - but he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, and the teacher wanted to give him detention. Life felt so unfair at that moment, and, he guesses, it was all just too much. 

 

When Chan thinks back to the person he used to be before he moved, he feels strange. It feels like 12 year old Chan was a completely different person with different views and hopes and thoughts. 12 years old Chan wanted to be the most popular person in the class. 12 years old Chan never thought twice about expressing his opinions. 13 years old Chan? He didn’t only think twice, he thought and thought until he got a headache. 13 years old Chan didn’t speak unless it was absolutely necessary. 13 years old Chan frowned more than he smiled.

 

13 years old Chan was  _ alone. _

 

He became a lot more reserved and grown up when he moved. It wasn’t a conscious decision - he was forced to become independent. He couldn’t rely on anyone else. He didn’t have anyone who understood his situation, so for every mistake he made, he beat himself up, angry for falling behind the rest. And although now, looking back, Chan  _ knows  _ that getting good grades with the amount of Korean he knew was impossible, he cannot go back in time and tell himself that  _ it’s okay, you’re doing your best _ .

 

It was the first two years that were the hardest. He missed Australia like crazy, grabbing at every opportunity to speak English. But, as one would assume, things should have become easier.

 

And, well -,

 

It did, in a way. He finally managed to hold proper conversations with people. He made friends. He even thought in Korean sometimes. But the mistakes he made didn’t disappear. The slight accent stayed, no matter how many times Chan locked himself in his room to practice his pronunciation. And in the end, it’s small things like this that hurt the most. 

 

Often he felt embarrassed about making mistakes when he spoke. It was a centre of the jokes at the dorms or at school, and he learnt to get used to it, but it also made him want to speak less and less. He learnt to be quiet, to hide his  _ ugly  _ accent that told everyone that he’s not one of them. He became self conscious about  _ everything  _ he did, afraid that he’ll get judged just like he did when he spoke. He hid.

 

Over the years, he learnt that no matter how hard he works, he’s never going to learn the language properly. It made him feel strange inside, like he doesn’t  _ belong _ . Now, at the age of 21, he’s lost, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever find his home. Sure, he can speak Korean fluently, but sometimes, throughout the day, he struggles to remember that. Maybe it’s just a simple word that he messed up, pronouncing it slightly wrong, and he laughs it off with his members because it’s funny and he feels a bit ridiculous for making a mistake like that. At other times, his accent comes out a bit stronger, and Jeongin can’t understand him, so Chan has to keep repeating the same sentence until the younger finally realises what he’s trying to say. Sometimes he forgets one word in Korean but he knows it in English, sometimes it’s the other way around, and it puts a sudden stop to his everyday life, as if the world is trying to remind him that he doesn’t belong anywhere. When it piles up and he’s frustrated, it only gets worse. He tries to explain to Woojin, someone he trusts so dearly, but he  _ can’t put it into words. _

 

He’s embarrassed. He knows he shouldn’t be, he gets told that every single time he mentions it.  _ “But hyung, you’re able to speak two languages! That’s so cool!”  _ Hyunjin would say with stars in his eyes.  _ “I wish I could be bilingual too.” _ Chan hates the bitter voice in the back of his mind spitting  _ you shouldn’t  _ and thanks Hyunjin with a timid smile. He accepts the fact that people admire him for being able to speak two languages, and it makes him feel like he is so ungrateful when he listens to Minho talk so comfortably, wishing he was in his place. Wishing that he grew up in Korea, wishing that he would have never known English. Wishing he was normal. So he gets embarrassed, because no one around him is struggling to speak so casually.

 

And then suddenly, he was lost.

 

It’s not something that happened quickly. Dealing with the identity crisis Chan was having was building up over time. When he forgot how to say cucumber in English when he was asked to translate. When he got asked what language he thinks in and he automatically answered Korean. When Felix talks to him in their mother tongue yet it feels so unfamiliar. And he didn’t realise it at first, not with the hectic life he’d been living for the past few years, but then he’s standing in front of Felix, introducing himself and he’s  _ lost _ .

 

Felix feels like home most of the time. They share the same inside jokes, the same childhood memories, and it makes Chan feel giddy, because he feels like he found a piece of Australia. But these things don’t make his terrible,  _ terrible  _ thoughts disappear from his head. The constant confusion and frustration whenever he thinks about himself. 

 

Australia isn’t  _ home  _ anymore. 

 

He tells himself that it shouldn’t hurt this much - coming to the realisation that the place where he grew up isn’t making him feel the way it used to. It’s not like he hates Australia now - he loves it so much it  _ hurts -,  _ but he doesn’t feel like Felix when they talk about visiting the country. He gets homesick, sure, but while Felix feels so strong, Chan feels almost empty. The contrast between him and the younger makes his skin crawl, but he doesn’t tell anyone about it.

 

They wouldn’t understand anyway. 

 

_ Maybe Felix would,  _ Chan thinks, smiling softly at the boy lying in his lap.  _ He will at one point.  _ But everytime the words are on the tip of his tongue, Chan swallows them down, because he wants Felix to enjoy these few years where he feels like he belongs. He doesn’t want him to go through what Chan has gone through, and he hopes that maybe he won’t even need to. Felix moved later, he lived in Australia for longer. Maybe he won’t get lost like Chan did. So instead, Chan makes a promise to himself as he watches the freckled boy sleep - he promises that he’ll be there for Felix when he’s struggling with Korean. He’ll be there when frustration gets the better of the younger and he wants to give up, and he’ll be there when he cries himself to sleep, choked on silence. He’ll be there when Felix needs him, because he knows what’s it like when no one is there to help you through something like this. 

 

Although Chan is lost, he’ll make sure Felix won’t be. 

  
  



End file.
